


In the Past

by loveandallthat



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:34:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8465524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandallthat/pseuds/loveandallthat
Summary: Dex and Nursey hooked up when they first met and now they don't talk about it, but it's fine.  He doesn't keep it a secret because Nursey is a guy, exactly, and he's not homphobic, internalized or otherwise.  Really.  So if people could stop assuming he is, that would be great.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read. Please let me know if you find a mistake!
> 
> I have been writing so much lately.

It’s not like they’re jilted lovers.  Really, it’s not.  They aren’t, weren’t ever lovers.

When they were just prospective students, exploring the campus and meeting the hockey team, they didn’t get enough of arguing with each other to be done.  Nursey was staying alone--Dex didn’t ask why.  He just went over to his room to say, “What’s your problem with me?” and ended up saying, “Yes, please, more.”

Dex still remembers that quiet, dark morning after, both of them saying that they were still unsure about the school.  He remembers leaving after Nursey fell back asleep.  He remembers thinking of him as _Derek_.

Dex spends the entire summer trying to date girls to reassure himself he’s still into them.  He is, but apparently not _just_ girls.

He remembers the weird second of relief at seeing Nursey on move-in day, at realizing that they both had actually decided to go to Samwell, right before they started fighting again, panting and flushing red.

\---

They keep it a very guarded secret, even from each other.

It doesn’t make Dex feel guilty until the team becomes a cohesive unit, until he and Nursey are best friends with Chowder and they’re both definitely lying to him by omission.

Dex still tries not to spend time alone with Nursey.  He doesn’t know how Nursey feels, because he never asks him, or gives him a chance to talk about it.  He’s terrified, to be honest.

He passes an entire year like this before he goes back home for the summer.  There’s no way, _no way_ that they’re going to bring it up next year if they didn’t bring it up this year.

Dex spends the whole summer dating the only out gay guy from his high school; they end it to go back to their respective schools.  He doesn’t tell anybody about that, either.

\---

Everyone in the Haus gets fed up with them at some point throughout the year.  With Ransom and Holster as their captains, the mood is different.  Dex thinks they’re doing a pretty good job, more hands-on and less strict than Jack, in a way that somehow works.

What it means for Dex and Nursey is that they see each other more often, visit the Haus a lot.  Maybe that’s also because Chowder is there, but either way they see each other a lot.  Dex still holds strong on his rule about not spending time alone with Nursey, and their arguments tend to mean that people just think that’s normal for them.

Really, it isn’t that bad until the time when Dex is having a particularly bad day.  Outwardly, he’s angry; he snaps at a barista about his coffee order, just for them assuming he needed room for cream.  He feels generally shitty about it, but he’s just having the worst day.  He did poorly on the most recent coding project he turned in, after thinking he’d worked really hard on it.  Even though he plans to ask Chowder to look at it, see what he did wrong, it’s in the back of his mind, a personal failure weighing him down.

Then, when he sits down to drink his coffee, a guy in his class sits down and makes small talk about it, talking about the only mistake he made on it and how mad at himself he is.  The guy asks Dex how he did, like they’re friends.  Dex says he did fine.

They guy looks him down, almost unmistakably checking him out.  “Maybe we could study together sometime?” he suggests.

Is . . . is he asking Dex out?  Since when does Dex give off a gay vibe?  Never mind that, yeah, he hypothetically could be into that.  It’s not that he’s bothered by the idea, but is he super obvious now?  Has Samwell, has Bitty (has Nursey) made him too comfortable in his own skin; is his family going to look at him one day and _know_?

“Um, sorry,” Dex says, and makes a break for it.

So he’s a little down on himself, and a little panicked.

And an hour later he’s at Haus dinner, sitting between Nursey and Bitty, Chowder on the other side of Nursey.

And really, Dex fucking loves Bitty.  He has fixed an oven until its dying breath for him, and installed its replacement, just to see him smile.  It doesn’t bother him _at all_ that Bitty is gay.  He’s just having a lot of trouble reconciling this Samwell life with his home life.

The scariest part is how often he enjoys this life more.

He tries not to really obviously lean himself away from Nursey and toward Bitty, which he realizes he’s doing at a few moments over the course of the meal.  At some point, he overcorrects and bumps into Nursey, who manages to turn the move into one that knocks his glass of water straight into Dex’s lap.

“Shit, sorry, man,” Nursey apologizes, and somehow it sounds insincere, too fucking chill.  Dex snaps; it was his own fault but he can’t help it.

“What the fuck?” he yells, feeling himself being madder than he should be, the same feeling from earlier except way more personal.

“It’s just water,” Bitty reassures him, already grabbing him a towel and throwing another one onto the chair and one on the floor.  Nursey starts going for the spill on the floor and bumps his head against Dex’s leg.  Bitty goes for the chair, close on Dex’s other side.

“I don’t need your help!” he yells, not specifically at either one of them.  Everyone stops moving and goes silent for a few moments.  Then Ransom and Holster look at each other like they’re going to fix this situation, but it’s Chowder who speaks first.

“Come to my room,” he says, in a voice Dex has never heard from him.  Chowder looks at Nursey.  “You too.”

Nursey follows immediately, but Dex isn’t spurred into action until Chowder stops and turns around and looks at him pointedly.  Then the three of them are in Chowder’s room and Dex is uncomfortable as fuck.

Chowder doesn’t look mad, just tired.  “You guys need to stop this.”

Dex speaks up, if only because he doesn’t believe that Nursey will.  “Yeah, I know.”

“Dex, you yelled at _Bitty_.”  Chowder’s tone is surprising enough that Dex kind of trips backwards and lands sitting on his bed.  It’s probably going to get wet from his improperly dried pants.

Bitty would obviously do anything for Chowder, but this is the first time that Dex has seen Chowder like this: defensive and protective.  It’s unnecessary; Dex knows what he did.

“Fuck, I know, I feel like shit already,” he groans.

“And you’ll apologize to him later?” Chowder suggests, in a way that is absolutely not a suggestion or a question.  Dex nods.  “Good.  But that’s not everything.”

Dex looks at Chowder, with a vague idea of where this is going.

“Your unresolved sexual tension is driving everybody crazy!”

That’s not _exactly_ where he thought this was going.

They’re usually so good at hiding it, but this time Dex and Nursey look at each other instead of pointedly away; this time their eyes say everything, and Chowder isn’t dumb.

“Um,” Nursey says, continuing only when Dex doesn’t make any moves to stop him, “We’ve already slept together.”

Dex already knows, obviously, and he’s still surprised to hear it spoken aloud.  It hapened so long ago he almost wasn’t sure that it was real.

“You mean this is you guys having RESOLVED sexual tension?” Chowder yells.

“C, you’ve been spending way too much time on the internet,” Dex replies.

“When?” Chowder demands.

“Um, I don’t know, recently?”

Chowder sits down on his bed hard enough that it actually bounces Dex, who kind of wonders if he should stand up now.  “Nursey, I meant when did you guys sleep together.”

“That does make more sense.”

“When we all visited Samwell for the first time,” Dex cuts in.

“Two years ago?” Chowder exclaims.

“About that, yeah.”

Chowder looks between the two of them like he’s never seen them before, which Dex supposes is fair.  For his part, he’s blushing and can’t look at Nursey anymore.  Chowder’s face bounces between shock and happiness.  “But you--I can’t-- _seriously_?”

“Oh great, you broke him,” Dex jokes to Nursey, before he remembers that they don’t do that.  This is the problem with being around Nursey.  Nursey laughs, though, as if they _can_ do this.

And then, all of a sudden, Dex panics and leaves.  He looks at Nursey, a last-ditch “please don’t follow me” expression hopefully communicated successfully between the two of them, as he abandons Nursey to deal with the fallout.

When he gets downstairs, Lardo is the only one there, at the table eating the last piece of pie.  Dex’s first thought is one of surprise that Bitty didn’t save it for Chowder, but it’s Lardo’s favorite, and she and Bitty have been spending a lot of time lately anyway, talking to each other in low voices while Ransom and Holster look on knowingly.  It makes Dex feel young, but the only thing worse than that would be everyone looking at him while he complained about it.

“I just came down here because I could overhear you guys in Chowder’s room,” Lardo explains, and Dex tenses.  “Yeah,” she continues.  “I heard that.”

The honesty is nice, at least in theory, but this feels like it could have been an ignorance is bliss kind of thing.

Lardo apparently doesn’t need his response.  “Is this why you jump through hoops to never be in the same room as him?  You don’t want to talk to him?”

Dex shakes his head.  He’s always known that wasn’t the real reason, in the back of his mind.  He pauses for a few moments, thinks about it, gathers his nervous thoughts.

“If you leave me alone in a room with Derek Nurse for too long I will sleep with him,” he confesses bluntly.  Maybe it’ll end the conversation nice and early.  It really is a big part of what was worrying him; he already sometimes wants to throw himself at Nursey when there are people around.

“I think that requires his permission?” Lardo hedges, seemingly unfazed.

Dex has been to the sexual abuse prevention classes; he knows “yes” one time doesn’t mean every time.  But he thinks back to that night.  If Nursey feels even one-tenth of what Dex still does . . .

“That’s not really the biggest problem.”

The biggest problem is, what if it’s just the sex?  They’re still attracted to each other; Dex can tell, even though they managed to hide it from everyone else this long.  They’ve always had this burning under their skin.  But they also always fight, don’t agree on things that are really, really important to Dex and who he is.

And yes, that’s also a part of the problem; he might never really be able to tell his family about this, if it . . . went anywhere.

Except what if he wondered about all of this and decided, yes, let’s make this a thing, and Nursey really _did_ say no?  For any number of reasons; Dex’s worry that it’s just an attraction, maybe Dex is wrong and there’s nothing there, maybe Nursey just plain doesn’t like Dex--it’s easy enough to imagine.

He’s not worried that Nursey will turn him down for sex--he doesn’t think it will happen, but even if it does, it wouldn’t be that big of a blow.  The problem would be if he turned down something more, something Dex pretends not to want because he’s afraid of the many ways that it could go wrong.  

“Whatever it is, you can’t go on like this,” Lardo insists.  Dex knows that.  He does.

There are still a lot of problems left.  And Dex, of course, jsut ran away from a chance to deal with them.  He leaves the Haus before he can do anything dumb like change his mind and go back to talk to Nursey.

\---

An hour later he texts Chowder to ask if Nursey is still there.  Chowder answers quickly and says no, seeming clipped.

Dex immediately leaves his room, trekking back to the Haus.  He walks in, passes straight past whoever is playing video games downstairs, and knocks on Bitty’s door; if Chowder’s here, he’ll hear what Dex is doing.

Bitty answers the door, dressed in really comfortable looking sweats.

On the other hand, Dex is incredibly uncomfortable.  “Hey, Bitty.  Can I come in?”

It’s possible that Nursey got the easy job, talking to Chowder, when Dex got Lardo and Bitty.

“Of course, sweetie,” Bitty answers, like it’s obvious, like Dex hadn’t expected him to say no.  He steps aside to let Dex past, and then closes the door.  Dex wonders if he would be nice enough to let someone into his room and _close the door for privacy_ if they had yelled at him a few hours ago.

“Thanks.”  Dex waits to sit on Bitty’s bed until Bitty gestures to invite him to, then he sits right next to Dex, who can’t believe that he’s being so nice.

Dex sighs.  “I’m really sorry.”  He tries to sound as sincere as possible; he means it like crazy.

Bitty just looks at him much too kindly.  “It’s fine, honey.”  He waves his hand.  “Bad day?”

“That’s no excuse,” Dex argues weakly.  He can’t imagine why anybody would yell at Bitty; he’s probably the only person on the team who ever dreamed of it.

“Are you saying it’s something else?” Bitty prompted.

“I’m just sorry,” Dex sighs..  He can’t really think of anything that legitimizes his reactions earlier.

“I already forgive you,” Bitty insists.  “So, do you have anything you want to talk about?”

Dex snorts.  Subtle.  “There’s no way you overheard, so who told you?  Chowder or Lardo?”  Dex won’t be mad at either of them; it’s not a secret anymore, and if anybody else is going to know, it should be Bitty.

“Nursey,” Bitty answers, and now there’s no way that Dex can be mad; Nursey has every right to tell people, to confide in his friends.  But it also gives Dex a sinking feeling in his gut.  He highly doubts that Nursey would go to Bitty about this unless it really was bothering him.  It makes him equal parts excited and nervous that maybe Nursey really is interested in him.

“Oh,” Dex breaths.  “Right.”

“I kind of caught him off-guard,” Bitty confesses, “So please don’t be mad at him.”

Dex isn’t.  “I’m not.  I’m mad at me.”

Bitty makes a noise of sympathy, almost looks like he might understand.  “Do you want to talk about it, sweetie?”

It’s weird, but when Bitty calls him that, it doesn’t bother him.  He doesn’t want to say it feels nice, but it wouldn’t be a lie.

“Not really,” Dex says.  “Maybe a little.”  Bitty smiles at him and waits for him to go on.  

“Can I tell you something?” Bitty asks.  “The best thing in my life is something where I didn’t know if it was going to work out, or how to make it work.  I actually thought it was impossible.  So isn’t it worth it to try?  Even if it doesn’t work out . . . I mean, I think it’ll be good, but if it isn’t, I’m here for you, OK?”

It kind of reminds Dex of the fact that he’s felt distanced from Bitty, younger than him and Lardo, Ransom and Holster, like there’s something keeping them apart.  The fact that he’s talking about being there instead of just doing it is a wall between them.  He tries to look reassured anyway.  “Thanks,” he mumbles.

“Dex--” Bitty starts.  Dex stands up.

“Thanks, Bitty,” he repeats, looking back and forcing a smile as he walks out the door.  Chowder sees him leaving, smiles at him and goes to say something, but Dex is already leaving.  Chowder goes right into Bitty’s room, making Dex wonder if he knows whatever is going on.

Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

\---

Somehow, on the way back to his dorm, he completely passes it by and goes to Nursey’s.  He’s not thinking when he does it--because he’s specifically trying not to think about what he’s doing.

He manages to keep not thinking about it until a few seconds after he knocks, when he starts to panic and steps backwards, thinking of leaving.

Of course Nursey opens the door before he gets the chance.  He looks really uncharacteristically surprised to see Dex standing there.

Dex uses that moment to walk right in, pace to the other side of the room before turning back on Nursey, who hasn’t even closed the door yet.  Maybe he’s hoping Dex will leave.

That’s not part of Dex’s plan, so he closes the door for him, getting basically closer to Nursey than he’s intentionally been in a really long time.  “Do you know what Bitty’s not telling us?”

“What?” Nursey manages; to be fair, Dex is definitely acting weird.  “No,” Nursey answers.  “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t notice,” Dex realizes.  “How can this not be bothering Chowder?  Does he know?”

Nursey is still looking at Dex like he’s grown a second head.  “I don’t think Chowder could keep a secret from us,” he offers.

“Maybe he could for Bitty,” Dex suggests.

“Bitty wouldn’t make him do that.”  Nursey sounds sure of himself; Dex hadn’t even thought of it like that, but it seems like a good point.

“So he just doesn’t trust any of us, then.”

“Dex . . .” Nursey says, then trails off for a long moment, before he starts again.  “Let’s just trust that if something really is up, Bitty has a good reason for not talking about it, and he’ll tell us when he’s ready.”

“That’s . . . way too chill,” Dex argues.

Nursey waves his hand vaguely.  “Yeah, well.”

That’s basically Nursey’s entire personality, isn’t it.

He looks Nursey in the eye to see that he’s already looking back, in a way that they haven’t been around each other since that one night: sincere.  Sure, they’ve meant it when they were fighting, but that always felt like they were partly putting on a show.  This is them being honest; no matter how much they trust Chowder, or course they’re still only this stripped bare alone.

“That’s not why you’re here,” Nursey says.

“No, of course not,” Dex confirms.  He sits down at Nursey’s desk; at first the bed seemed too intimate, but he realizes that Nursey was doing his homework, or maybe just writing poetry on his own, his laptop still open.  There’s a water bottle next to it with the cap off and Dex thinks that Nursey really shouldn’t set himself up for accidents like that.

“I’m sorry I told Chowder and Bitty without asking you,” Nursey offers.

“It’s fine.”

“Really?”  Nursey sounds actually shocked.  Which, again, is fair.

“Are you implying that I’m not chill?” Dex jokes.  Nursey laughs and Dex can’t look away.  It must be this temporary insanity that drives him to ask, “What are we doing?”

“Nothing,” Nursey answers, which is true, obviously.  He throws himself on his bed and Dex gets flashbacks.  How was it possible that he had avoided looking at Nursey in a bed this long?  Probably because he tried really hard to look away if he was ever at risk.

Dex wonders if his entire face screams _desperation_ to Nursey, or if he doesn’t pay enough attention to things like that.  He kind of feels like he’s being obvious enough that anyone could tell.  “What do you _want_ to be doing?” he clarifies, because he’s terrified, absolutely petrified to tell Nursey what he wants first.

He’s suddenly terrified that Nursey could just answer that he’s cool with whatever, because that sounds really plausible.

“Dex, it’s been two years.  We didn’t even think we were ever going to see each other again.”

Oh no.  Oh no, is this a rejection?  That’s fine; Dex can handle it as long as he can leave now.  He even starts standing up before Nursey goes on.

“And now, like . . . back then, it was just sex when we were fighting a lot, and now we’re teammates and I actually care about you and we fight a lot, and that’s way more complicated.”

“So you don’t want to try . . . anything,” Dex hedges.

Nursey sits up to look at him.  “I mean that we have to know exactly what we’re doing before we start anything.  But what do you want?  That matters, too.”

Dex really thought that they were going to avoid this part of the conversation.

“I don’t want to put you in a weird position.”

“Like what?” Nursey asks, raising his eyebrow.

Dex recognizes the innuendo suddenly and rolls his eyes.  “Really?”  Nursey shrugs.  “Anyway, I meant like . . . being with someone who might always be partially closeted, or at least is still figuring that out.”

“‘Be with’ like date?  You want to date me?”

“Don’t say it like that,” Dex complains.  “Besides, I couldn’t--I can’t ask you to deal with all this.  And we fight all the time.  Do you really think this would go well?”

“Seriously?  This whole time?”

“This whole time what?” Dex demands, embarrassed.

“You’ve been worrying about that this whole time?”

“Yes!” Dex exclaims.  “Haven’t you?  What’s your excuse?”

“Obviously I just thought you didn’t like me!”

Dex sits back, stunned.  That . . . makes sense, unfortunately.  He was worried about that, too, and Nursey’s been way nicer to him than he ever was to Nursey.  But it’s so high school.

“It’s not that I don’t like you; I just don’t _agree_ with you very often,” Dex corrects, proving his own point.

Nursey ignores him.  “You’ve wanted to _date_ me this whole time.”

“Shut up.  You know how badly we could fuck this up,” Dex protests.

“Worse than it is now?”

Dex imagines it.  Yes, definitely.  If they let each other in, for real, when they know they’ll probably fight this much for the rest of their lives, they’re risking pretty serious pain.  They don’t have a lot of ideals in common on the surface.  There’s something to be said for how often they come back to discuss things, how talking things out and understanding each other is important to them, though.  It could go really, really wrong.  It could be amazing.

“It’s possible,” he warns.

“Yeah,” Nursey agrees, standing up.  

Dex follows suit.  “We’re really doing this?”

They’re so incredibly close right now.  “I want to,” Nursey whispers.

Dex reaches a shaking hand out to put it on the side of his face; Nursey doesn’t even chirp him.  He pulls Nursey closer with his other hand on his hip.  “Me too,” he says, unnecessarily.  Nursey grins, and kisses him.

It’s different now that they know each other.  In fact, it’s possible that they both like and dislike each other more than they did the last time they did this.  The nerves are different, too; last time they were strangers, and this time they’re afraid because they’re way too close for this to go wrong.  It’s a mess, and Dex has signed up for it knowingly and willingly.

Maybe it’s all in Dex’s head; maybe Nursey isn’t kissing him any differently than that time, except what two years of experience might bring.  But he’s pretty sure it’s different, the worry turning to cautious movements instead of a frantic need to do everything as quickly as possible.

Dex has never been kissed this thoroughly before.  He doesn’t even have the capacity to do anything except hang on, get one hand in Nursey’s hair and one in his back pocket because he can’t help but be clingy.  Nursey doesn’t complain; he just wraps his arms around Dex’s waist and makes him feel like they’re at least almost close enough.  He feels Nursey move to deepen the kiss and moves with him.  Dex can’t help but moan, and they’re only kissing, slow and close and so, so hot.

Dex pulls away to catch his breath and Nursey laughs at him softly.  Nursey starts to unbutton Dex’s shirt and smooth his hands over his chest, seemingly unconcerned that Dex is barely capable of doing anything but reveling in the touch.  He feels really unbalanced, like he’s swaying into Nursey and he can’t trust him not to let them both fall onto the bed, not that he would complain if they went in that direction.

Then Nursey goes for his pants and Dex thinks he wouldn’t complain about going anywhere with him.  Except then Nursey starts to go to his knees and Dex--literally--can’t stand for this; his legs absolutely won’t support him for much longer.  He gets his hand on Nursey’s upper arm and guides him to the bed instead, not sure of the best way to say “yes, please, that, but over here instead,” politely, or at least not horribly rudely.

Apparently he communicates this without words, and Nursey pushes him down on his back while he finishes undoing his pants and then Dex feels like they’re really, really uneven.  He reaches for the hem of Nursey’s t-shirt and starts to lift it until Nursey cooperates, getting his arm stuck for a second.  Then, when they’re both shirtless, it’s way too tempting to pull Nursey fully on top of him.  The skin to skin contact is electric.  He feels the harsh friction of Nursey’s jeans against his boxers and still grinds up into the feeling, desperate for it.  Then Nursey is moving to kiss him like he still can’t get enough of his mouth and it’s fine, great really, but the combination of Nursey’s tongue in his mouth and his entire, half-naked body along Dex’s, shifting and grinding and--Dex isn’t going to last long.

He puts his hands on Nursey’s hips enough to get him up on his hands and knees and shove his pants and underwear down.  They’re at least going to be naked while they do this.  Nursey answers this by just bringing them right back together and putting his mouth on Dex’s neck.  Dex didn’t know that this was a thing for him but he immediately gasps and jerks his hips up into Nursey’s.  This makes Nursey pause, panting heavily against Dex’s neck and causing him to shiver.

Nursey pushes himself up suddenly, gets a hand around both of them and starts to move, almost too gently.  Dex can’t help but push up into it, and Nursey speeds up until they’re both breathing harshly into each other’s ears.  Dex is really, really close and, embarrassingly, is pushed right over the edge when Nursey turns his head and whispers, “Dex.”  Nursey follows shortly after, though, and collapses on top of Dex for a few moments before he kisses him, clumsily and messily, and rolls off to lie next to him.  Dex just stares at the ceiling.

He luckily manages to compose himself enough to grab for the strategically placed tissues just within arms’ reach.

“It’s your own fault I didn’t blow you,” Nursey says after a while.  Dex turns sideways enough to give him his best, _really?_ look.  “Yeah, you’re right,” Nursey goes on, as if Dex had answered with words, “this was pretty good too.”

Dex rolls his eyes when Nursey puts his hand between them and grabs his Dex’s, interlacing their fingers and then turning his head away and closing his eyes, ready to sleep.  Dex leans forward enough to grab the blankets and throw them over the two of them, keeping their hands linked as he does it.  The bed is impossibly small, and he doesn’t usually sleep on his back, but he closes his eyes and is out in minutes.

\---

At the end of the year, Bitty calls Dex, Nursey, and Chowder into his room.  Jack is there, and he covers Chowder’s mouth right as he starts to yell, “Jack!” in surprise.

“Hi, Chowder,” he says quietly.

“What are you doing here?” Chowder whispers.

“You don’t need to be that quiet,” Bitty says through a smile.

“Bitty and I wanted to tell you something.”

Chowder waited; Dex and Nursey looked at each other, wondering if there was any way this was what it seemed like, communicating with their expressions.

“Jack and I are together,” Bitty announces.

Chowder can barely contain himself.

“Shit, Nurse, you were right,” Dex complains.

Bitty looks over.  “You guessed that we were dating?”

“He just said you had a good reason to keep a secret from us,” Dex corrects, and Bitty looks a little bit admonished.  Jack literally steps between the two of them, like he can protect Bitty from a look.  Bitty pushes him aside.

“I’m sorry, Dex.  I wanted to tell you, but you can see how this is more dangerous the more people we tell.”  

Dex figures that this means Bitty knows exactly _when_ Dex wishes he’d told him.  “I get it,” Dex assures him.

Then Chowder is hugging Jack and Bitty together, and Dex is happy, really, but he doesn’t need to be here anymore, so he grabs Nursey’s wrist and drags him out, and back to his dorm.

“I was right,” Nursey whispers.

Dex rolls his eyes.  “Shut up.”

Nursey does, but only to kiss him against the closed door.

Maybe they’ll always be like this, but maybe that’s a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment anything! Especially criticism; go nuts. I'd love to hear from you.
> 
> Find me on tumblr as [loveandallthat](http://loveandallthat.tumblr.com/)! I take prompts for tons of fandoms and pairings.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Sorry I write boring sex~~


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